Ghosts by Gaslight

by Jack Dann

  Though he had kept his voice low, the last words escaped him as a cry of anguish. I glanced uneasily towards the bishop, but our oblivious companion did not stir.

  “Maurice,” I ventured, when he did not immediately continue, “you have sketched this malignant suitor all too vividly, and yet I have no picture of your—your friend: you have not so much as mentioned her name.”

  “Her name was Claire,” he said slowly, as if struggling with some inhibition on his own side. “She was—dark, and slender—about your own height—quiet, and studious, and yet she—really I cannot, one cannot catch the essence of another. She was gentle, and virtuous, and I watched the jaws of the trap closing upon her, and did nothing. Remember that the fortunes of her mother and sisters were at stake in this; her mother was not, I think, easy about the match, rightly fearing some element of self-sacrifice on Claire’s part. The constraint between us grew more tangible once the engagement had been announced. At the wedding—I wish to God I had not been there—she looked serene and calm, but very pale, whilst Sir Lewis gazed upon her with the air of a collector about to lock away some new and greatly coveted acquisition.

  “They went immediately abroad, where they remained for some months; and how different her letters, with their dutiful descriptions of scenery and formal professions of happiness, seemed from those I had once received! When we called upon them after their return to London, I knew immediately that she was unhappy, but she contrived, then and afterwards, never to be alone with me. Sir Lewis, furthermore, made it subtly plain to me that I would be a tolerated rather than a welcome visitor. His reptilian eyes seemed to draw out the very feelings I strove most desperately to conceal in his presence, and to flicker distrustfully from her to me.

  “Her only child, a daughter, was born before the first anniversary of their wedding, and became the one source of light in the darkness closing upon her; that, and the knowledge that her mother and sisters were now securely provided for, though at a price they would never willingly have paid. We were all of us aware that Claire was deeply unhappy, and yet her manner of bearing it seemed to exact from us a vow of silence, not only in her presence, but between ourselves. We looked at one another and knew that we knew and could not speak of it. Or at least I could not, until the third year of her marriage was drawing to its close, when we began to see even less of her, and that only in the presence of her husband. His manner, formally speaking, remained perfectly polite, yet in his presence all conversation withered and died; you could feel the malevolent force of his personality raying out across the room.

  “We had, however, an ally within his house: Claire’s maid Rosina, who had been with the family since she was scarcely more than a child. Rosina was quick, observant, and entirely devoted to her mistress, and it was through her eyes that we saw the final scenes of the tragedy unfold.

  “Claire had written a great deal before her marriage; though she would always dismiss her work as ‘scribbling,’ she had shown me some chapters of a novel which I thought very fine. And it seems that in that last autumn, as she became more and more a prisoner, she turned once again to her pen for solace and began secretly to compose—we shall never know what, for despite her precautions he discovered, read, and then destroyed her manuscript. There followed a terrible scene, in which Claire turned at last upon her tormentor and declared her resolution to leave him. He swore that if she did so she would never see her child again, and that her mother and sisters would be turned out into the street. Coldly advising her to reconsider, he left the room.

  “That same night, the child was stricken by a raging fever. Doctors were summoned, and every possible remedy tried, but in vain; less than twenty-four hours later, she was dead. Rosina, who had not left her mistress’s side throughout the long night and the dreadful day that followed, said that Sir Lewis did not once appear in the sickroom until the poor child’s ordeal had ceased. Claire’s grief had overwhelmed her, but as he appeared in the doorway, she ceased to weep, and a terrible stillness came over her. She took the dead child in her arms, and though she seemed not even to see her husband looming directly in her path, such was her expression that he fell back and spoke not a word as she bore her daughter’s body from the room and slowly descended the stair to her private sitting room, whence came the snap of the key turning in the lock.

  “Sir Lewis seemed, for once, at a loss. Slowly recovering his self-possession, he descended the stair in his turn and stood irresolutely at Claire’s door. Twice he raised his hand as if to knock, but did not do so; finally, he continued on down and disappeared into his own private domain. Rosina then made haste to rejoin her mistress, expecting Claire to respond when she tapped with their special signal upon the door, and called softly to ask if she could be of help, but there was no reply. The house was very quiet, and as she waited at the door she became aware of a very faint scratching sound from within. She tapped once more, but there was again no response, and the faint scratching or rustling sound continued without pause.

  “Several times during the next few hours, as afternoon gave way to evening and darkness fell, Rosina returned to the sitting-room door, with the same result. The rest of the house remained deathly quiet; no one came to give her any orders; no bells were rung. Finally, she went miserably upstairs to her own quarters, where she fell at last into an exhausted sleep.

  “Next morning she was awakened by the maidservant with whom she shared the attic with the news that the lock of her mistress’s room was about to be forced. Dressing hastily, Rosina was just in time to see this done. A footman broke open the door and stood back to allow Sir Lewis to pass. From her position on the stair, Rosina saw her mistress lying motionless upon a sofa, with her dead child in her arms. Unable to restrain herself, she ran into the room, to be roughly ejected by Sir Lewis’s valet, but not before she had taken in the scene in one terrible glimpse: the dead mother and child in their last embrace; the empty vial of laudanum; and on the writing table nearby, a pile of handwritten pages surrounded by several pens, sheets of blotting paper, and an open bottle of ink.

  “Rosina was shortly summoned by the housekeeper, given immediate notice, and sent upstairs to pack. Instead, overcome by grief and horror, she threw herself upon her bed and wept until sleep overtook her. By the time she woke, it was late in the evening. She had gathered together her few things and was venturing out upon the landing when a fearful shriek came echoing up the stairwell. There followed a brief silence, then sounds of shouting and of running feet. Afraid to descend, she waited for what seemed like hours until her friend appeared. The cry had been that of Sir Lewis’s valet, who had found his master dead on the floor of his dressing room, surrounded by the scattered pages of a manuscript. The corpse’s face was frozen into an expression of indescribable terror, and entirely blanched, as if vitriol had been flung across the features.”

  Maurice paused, staring into the dwindling glow of the coals. A formless dread that had crept upon me was beginning to assume a more definite shape, as if some sinister presence were materialising in the shadows behind the slumbering bishop.

  “There was a kind of fatality about the way in which that manuscript came into my possession. It so happened that Sir Lewis’s valet was entirely unlettered, but most reluctant to admit as much; and it was he who collected up the scattered pages whilst his master’s corpse was being removed under the doctor’s direction, and carried them off to the study nearby, where he placed them in one of the pigeonholes in Sir Lewis’s desk. And since it was later asserted that Sir Lewis had been looking over some legal document at the time of his death—the cause being given as a stroke, with the curious blanching of the face put down as an unusual complication—I believe the valet mistook one set of papers for another, without any idea that he had done so. The executors must have been exceptionally scrupulous, for they returned all of Claire’s personal effects to her mother, including an envelope labelled “manuscript, in the hand of the late Lady Wainwright,” which her mother, in recognition
of the literary ambitions Claire and I had once shared, passed on to me.

  “I was, by then, living in rooms off the Strand, in Essex Court, and I was quite alone on the evening when I sat down to open the envelope. It was only a few weeks after Claire’s death, and I was still numb with the shock of it as I began to read, hoping to hear again the voice that . . . no matter. The hand was hers indeed, but the voice was not.

  “It was, or seemed at first to be, simply an account of someone waiting alone, in an upstairs room of an empty house at night. The location was not specified but you felt the stillness all around, the extremity of the speaker’s isolation; for it was told in the first person, though you could not tell whether the narrator was male or female, young or old. As I read on, I felt more and more strongly that the consciousness of the narrative was in fact my own, until I lost all awareness of my actual surroundings. In its gradual accumulation of detail it was like the furnishing of a house; item by item, it crept upon you in a slow and insidious fashion. It seemed to reach directly into that part of the soul which believes upon instinct, like a child, but which is normally inaccessible to us except in moments of absolute terror or utter despair. Something, I know not how it was done, caused me to recall with intolerable vividness every mean or contemptible thing I had ever done, from earliest childhood, and worse, every good deed I had left undone; a great black catalogue of sins and omissions opening before my eyes. And yet I did not feel this moral terror to be the principal intent of the narrative upon me, but rather an accompaniment of some still darker, more ominous purpose.

  “The very rhythm of the sentences was like a soft drum, a pulse heard more and more loudly, until it became the sound of footsteps, still a long way off, but charged with menace. I was still faintly aware that I was reading, but that awareness only increased my apprehension, for the extraordinary vividness with which the scene had been set seemed now to guarantee that the face of what was fast approaching would not be left unspecified, and yet would awaken more, not less, terror than the worst promptings of my own imagination.

  “It was, I think, at that exact moment that I realised that I was hearing the sound of real, actual footfalls in the corridor outside my rooms. I looked up—or thought I looked up—from the page, and found that my familiar surroundings had metamorphosed into those of the narrative. I was alone in a dark and isolated house, far from any other human habitation, with footsteps closing upon me where no footsteps should have been.

  “Clutching the manuscript, I rose from my chair and began to back away from the door. The room was lit by a single candelabrum, so placed that I could see the reflection of its flames in the window to which I turned as my one hope of escape. Better to be dashed to pieces on the ground below than endure so much as a glimpse of what was preparing to enter. As I reached for the sash, I saw my own face reflected in the windowpane, caught in the last extremity of terror, its eyes fixed upon a point beyond my shoulder, upon the door opening at my back; upon that visitant whom I saw indeed as in a glass darkly, but whom my reflected self seemed plainly and intolerably to view, in the instant before I covered my eyes with the manuscript and darkness dropped upon me like the hangman’s hood.

  “I came to myself upon the floor of my room in Essex Court, the unread portion of the narrative pressed against my cheek; you see its mark upon me still. How or why I was spared I know not, but I woke with the conviction that had I reached the end of the manuscript, I should certainly have died. At any rate, I have never yet dared to look upon it again.”

  He fell silent, staring into the dying embers of the fire.

  “Maurice,” I said hesitantly, “do you mean to say that this manuscript still exists?”

  “Yes; I could not bring myself to destroy it.”

  Because it was hers, I thought, but did not like to say so.

  “You are right, of course,” he went on, as if I had spoken. “It is only that—well, supposing I did fall asleep? Or failed some sort of test and turned back when I should have gone on? After all, I did not actually see anything plain; perhaps I was, literally, frightened by my own reflection? Might I not be destroying something that ought to have been preserved?”

  “Maurice,” I said firmly, “if after twenty years the impression of that experience remains so indelible—and not only the mental impression,” I added, glancing at the mark seared across his cheek, “then it would be most unwise to chance a second encounter with it.” But then I thought he looked at me a little askance, which made me doubt my own motive, and caused me to add impulsively, “but if you wish, I will sit by you while you look at the manuscript again, or even . . .”

  There I pulled up, aware that whilst Maurice was as devoid of egotism as it is possible for a man to be, he might not be well pleased by my offering to assume the risk. But he seemed not to catch the last phrase; he took my hand again, and this time I found that mine was the colder.

  “Dear Laura, I could not ask so much of you . . . and yet there is no one else on this earth I would ask.”

  “Then trust me once more. You must not bear this burden any further; at least, not alone.”

  “Very well. If you are certain, let it be now—”

  “Do you mean you have it here?”

  “Yes, for I never feel quite easy unless I know that it is safe. But Laura, it is late, and you are cold, I think, and perhaps we should wait for daylight—”

  “No,” I said, striving to conceal my apprehension, for I could see that he wanted no further delay.

  “Very well,” he repeated. “You will watch as I read, and unless I was indeed mistaken, you will witness its destruction.”

  He rose and quietly made up the fire and went softly from the room. The bishop, whom I had quite forgotten, stirred amidst the flickering shadows, but did not wake. I drew my wrap more closely about me, almost overwhelmed by several contrary emotions. The dark spell of his narrative still clung to me, and yet I felt as if a long chapter in the history of my friendship with Maurice had just reached its close, leaving me eager to know what the next might bring. Warmed by the cheerful glow and crackle of the reviving fire, I wondered how mere words on paper could possibly bring about the effect that Maurice had so vividly described. Yet there was the mark upon his cheek and the death of the malignant husband, which led me to thoughts of poor Claire, whom I still could not picture with any distinctness; and so my mind ran on for an indefinite interval, until I became aware that Maurice had been gone far longer than it could reasonably have taken him to ascend to his room and return with the manuscript.

  There were, of course, a dozen reasons why he might have been delayed, but as I sat upright, with my heart beginning to race and cold apprehension rushing upon me, they seemed to shrink to one, at least to the only one I dared entertain: Maurice had been taken suddenly ill. Really I ought to ring, or wake someone—but whom?—at two in the morning? And what if it proved to be a false alarm . . . ? But fear already had me on my feet and moving towards the mantelpiece to secure a candle. With a last glance at the unconscious bishop, I hastened towards the door and out into the chill hallway.

  Going up the stairs, I had to look to my candle, for the wind had risen outside. The sky was fortunately bright: through the windows above the landing, I could see wisps of cloud scudding past the face of the moon. Save for the faint moaning of the wind, the house was deathly quiet, and as I turned into the corridor which led to Maurice’s room, even the sound of the wind dwindled and ceased. My candle flame steadied as I stopped at his door, feeling suddenly conspicuous. No light showed underneath. I tapped as loudly as I dared, glancing over my shoulder. There was no response. Too late to turn back now; I tried the handle, found it unlocked, and entered.

  Though I caught the odour of a wick recently extinguished, the room was dark, save for a band of moonlight streaming through the French windows opposite, which were, I realised, open. An icy draught caught at my own candle and, before I could shield it, blew out the flame. But the moonlight falling
across the floor had already shown me what I most dreaded finding. Maurice lay sprawled upon the carpet, with his head by the open window and the moon shining full upon his face. For a moment I thought he might be safe, for his eyes were closed and his expression perfectly peaceful; he looked, as sleepers often do, far younger than his years, and in that pure white light the seared mark seemed to have been quite erased. But as I knelt beside him I saw all too plainly that he was not asleep. The freezing wind rose and ruffled his hair, but he did not move. Instead, something stirred and rustled in the darkness on my right, rearing up, as it seemed, from behind a table no more than two feet from where I knelt, something that flapped and swooped above me in a serpentine rush and went howling out upon a sudden gust that flung those terrible pages into the moonlit sky, scattering upon the wind and away into the night.